Founded as a loose confederation of states in 1945, the Arab League has struggled to overcome dysfunction and disunity among its members.
Jonathan Masters leads writers and editors who produce wide-ranging content for CFR.org, including Backgrounders, visual stories, and events. He also writes on foreign policy and national security and his work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic, and Bloomberg. Masters has a BA in political science from Emory University and an MA in social theory from the New School. He is a term member of CFR and a member of the Overseas Press Club.
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Ukraine has struggled to forge an independent path, torn between Europe and the United States in the West and its long-standing ties to Russia in the East.
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Every four years, U.S. presidential candidates compete in a series of state contests to gain their party’s nomination. The political process is one of the most complex and expensive in the world.
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The extradition process enables governments to bring fugitives abroad to justice, but it can be fraught with political tension, even when a treaty is in place.
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NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
As NATO readies for what some believe is a new Cold War with Russia, the seventy-year-old alliance struggles to manage widening internal divisions. -
The International Monetary Fund, both criticized and lauded for its efforts to promote financial stability, continues to find itself at the forefront of global economic crisis management.
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The U.S. Navy’s dominance of the world’s oceans has made it an indispensable foreign policy tool as well as a guarantor of global trade, but a mix of challenges is raising difficult questions about its future.
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For many policymakers, economic sanctions have become the tool of choice to respond to major geopolitical challenges such as terrorism and conflict.
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High-profile mass shootings in the United States in recent years have rekindled the gun control debate and raised comparisons of policies around the world.
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Since its founding in 1944, the World Bank has evolved from a lender focused on European reconstruction to the preeminent international institution for economic development and poverty reduction.
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Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament
A collapse of this Cold War–era arms treaty, which many believe has favored the United States, could unleash a new age of nuclear weapons competition. -
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
The military exercises in and around Norway are a significant test of NATO’s collective defenses at a time of rising geopolitical tensions. -
The United States and other Western countries are reevaluating their foreign investment regulations amid an uptick in Chinese interest in strategic sectors.
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President Trump’s revocation of a former CIA director's security clearance has stirred up a debate about access to government secrets, free speech, and democratic norms.
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If Tesla goes private with significant funding from Saudi Arabia or other foreign investors, it would raise national security and ethical questions.
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In striking Syria without an international law justification, the United States leaves itself open to criticism and may invite similar behavior by other countries.
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The expulsion of Russian diplomats by more than twenty governments is a remarkable show of unity and a deepening of Moscow’s rift with the West.
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A growing list of brazen foreign operations signals that there are few constraints on Russian intelligence under Vladimir Putin’s leadership.
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Charges of foreign power interference in the U.S. presidential election have raised grave national security concerns and touched off multiple federal inquiries that could drag on for months.
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President Trump has vowed to pass corporate tax reform in 2017, but Congress must still navigate complex negotiations over how to reduce rates and subsidies, as well as whether to tax profits made abroad.
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The dismissal of FBI Director James Comey raises concerns about the government’s ability to investigate Russian meddling in U.S. elections, and the broader national security role of the agency.
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The dismissal of FBI Director James Comey raises concerns about the government’s ability to investigate Russian meddling in U.S. elections, and the broader national security role of the agency, says CFR’s Matthew Waxman.
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The quadrennial U.S. presidential nominating conventions are usually dominated by domestic themes. But they have at times been flavored by global economic concerns and national security threats, offering competing Democratic and Republican visions about the United States' role in the world.